


On the Wing

by saltpehg



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ain’t taking none of draco’s shit, Slow Burn, badass!hermione, good ole enemies to lovers, hellacrunchyexteriorbutactuallyacinnamonroll!draco, pilot!draco, pilot!hermione, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltpehg/pseuds/saltpehg
Summary: Modern, Royal Navy AU.  Hermione Granger, self-proclaimed started-from-the-bottom-now-I'm-here self-starter, moves from the enlisted ranks into the British Military Officer world as a promising young flight student.  But as she navigates the rigorous demands of learning how to fly top military aircraft for the Royal Navy, juggling her social demands, finding a decent place to study in peace, and confronting her secret fear of heights, she must come to terms with her strange hot-cold relationship with one seriously obnoxious, infuriating, line-blurring, pretentious, pointy-ferret top-Naval aviator, Draco Malfoy.Who just so happens to be her On-Wing instructor at RAFC Cranwell."Fook me."
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	On the Wing

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so... I've been unceremoniously catapulted into the Dramione world, and I'm beyond hooked. I've taken a lot of liberties with this story, including melding personal experience, American military and British military stuff, and just general randomness, so suspend your disbelief. I'll try and make it as realistic as possible, but since I'm not in the British Navy, I'll just have to expound on my own experiences to fill in the gaps. Hopefully it isn't too distracting! 
> 
> In this world, we can pretend that like in the United States, you can be enlisted in the Navy and then become an officer and get picked up for flight school--which is the case with Hermione.
> 
> Draco attended Dartmouth a few years before Ginny and Hermione; so he's just a few years older.
> 
> I also plan on finishing this story, but as of right now, there isn't much in the way of plot, except for forecasted Dramione stuff. Hope you enjoy! I definitely welcome any feedback or comments, since I haven't had much writing experience lately!

She is slowly sucking the last bit of peanut butter off the spoon, failing miserably in her attempt to retain a single word she was reading about "antiservo tabs," something she is absolutely certain she'd never need, when her bedroom door crashes open behind her. 

"You'll never believe who showed up to my class today," her friend drawls, throwing herself, face-down, and her bookbag onto Hermione's bed. 

Hermione pops the spoon out of her mouth, still staring hopelessly at the computer screen. The words are fuzzing together. "Let me guess, Ron Burgundy?" 

Her best friend and roommate, Sub-Lieutenant Ginerva Weasley RN, simply groans into Hermione's pillow, a woeful, desperate sound. Hermione purses her lips.

"You know our iron doesn't work, and you're completely trashing your uniform," Hermione replies in her clipped, matter-of-fact manner, finally looking down at the youngest Weasley sprawled out. 

Ginny flips herself over and throws an arm across her forehead, dramatic, as always. "Who cares about a uniform at a time like this?"

"You're going to be caring about it Monday morning at 5:30 AM when you've clearly forgotten about the disaster pile you consider a uniform--your only uniform, I might add-- and our instructors leap on you like hyenas on a half-eaten carcass. They can smell wrinkles from 50 miles away," Hermione sniffs, finally breaking her gaze from her computer to stare at the woman draped across her queen bed. Bits of red hair spring from her bun in such a Weasley way that Hermione can't help but smile.

Ginny sighs and sits up. "Yes, yes, you're always right, _mother_ ," she sneers and snatches the jar of peanut butter and spoon from Hermione's hands. She dips the spoon into the jar, making a ceremonious show of scraping around the inside before she remembers why she burst into the room in the first place.

"Ohmigod. So okay, obviously long after you signed in and left, I show up to muster and all the usual Dartmouth Chadholes were there, fucking around like they have nowhere else to be but chilling in an empty classroom." Hermione nods studiously in response. 

Ginny pauses, lifting her eyebrows and dunking the spoon back in the jar again for further dramatic effect.

Hermione shoots her the driest of looks. "On with it, Weasley."

Ginny sniffs before continuing. “I'll be goddamned if _Draco Feckin’ Malfoy_ ," her eyebrows wiggle up and down, "doesn't saunter through the classroom door like he owns the whole Royal Navy."

All it takes is a name for Hermione's stomach to do a series of sickening loops.

She blinks, and takes a swallow, hoping to all the hells her mask of indifference isn’t cracking. It sends her thoughts swirling around in spikes that smash against the inside of her skull.

A stilted series of breaths, warm and wet and whiskey-laden, across her bare shoulder--

A salty bead of sweat trickling down a lock of bright hair and dripping with a plap on the pillowcase--

Soft lips pressed firm into the spot on her neck behind her right ear, where a beauty mark lives--

Ginny's voice materializes once again into existence.

"--the crispest, tightest uniform I've ever seen, with a smirk straight out of _Top Gun_. What a fucking chad-ass! Strode into the front of the classroom, knocking that absolutely ridiculous class ring on the table, only for half of the class to knock theirs in some weird ritualistic chant. Fucking Dartmouth grads," she says, acerbic. "The whole school thinks he's a goddamn celebrity.” 

Herminone rolls her eyes and attempts to refocus on her studying, deciding she was done ever thinking about Malfoy again in her entire lifetime. Some things are meant to stay buried.

Ginny suddenly gets a faraway look. “Even still... what I wouldn't do to unbuckle that belt and find out where that self-serving stick is shoved so far up his ass."

"Just the thought of Malfoy naked makes me want to stab my eyeballs out with a letter opener," Hermione lies effortlessly. “He’s so old and smarmy.”

Of course, the youngest Weasley knows far far better, being Hermione’s best mate throughout school. Her indifference to Malfoy is a charade Ginny is well-capable of seeing through.

“He’s only two years older than us,” Ginny says, raising an eyebrow. "You know he’s considered one of the most accomplished pilots the Royal Navy’s ever seen? Must be why he’s an instructor already.”

"His father, no doubt, rubs elbows with all the big wigs, and put in a 'good word' with the Admiral," Hermione seethes, curling her fingers into air quotes. Into her stomach drops a cold dread: God help her if she were unlucky enough to have his pompous ass as an instructor. "Doesn't want his precious baby boy to become marred by actual combat, so he gets shoved into a cushy, comfortable job."

"Well, he was at the top of the class at Dartmouth," Ginny offers with a shrug. “Guy’s bloody brilliant.”

"Yes, well, the rest of us commoners actually have to work for a living," Hermione grumbles.

"Not all of us can be bad-ass and work our way up from the bottom, _Granger_ ," Ginny jokes in an absolutely spot-on impression of Malfoy’s snooty drawl.

Hermione returns her gaze to her monitors: one side with meticulous notes about aerodynamics, fuel systems, and trim tabs, and the other with a 500-page PDF. Hermione was on page 367, on her second read-through.

"You do know it's a Friday, right? And class hasn't even officially started?"

Hermione rolls her eyes, tired of this argument. "I'm not sure how else to spell it out for you, but I actually like being prepared for things ahead of time. It's not some neurotic scheme I've developed to dupe you all into looking inferior."

Ginny jumps up, throws her arms around the bushy-haired woman, and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "Everything you do absolutely is a neurotic scheme, but I love you all the same! Let's go out tonight. Harry and Ron are coming into town around 3 today."

“I don’t know, Gin, I planned on having a date with our couch. Can’t we do game night here or something?”

“We always do game night! C’mon, this is our last weekend in the free world before we’re chained in our rooms looking at online learning modules for 15 hours a day!” Hermione can feel the pleading look her friend is giving her behind her head.

“That look might work on Harry, Gin, but it never has on me.”

“Alright, fine. No puppy eyes. How about you just come because we’re your friends and we want to be with you?”

“Ugh, with the guilt trips,” Hermione whines, playfully slamming a fist on her desk. A mug sloshes a bit of cold coffee out onto a stack of mail. “Of course I will go: where Harry and the Weasleys tread, I always follow.”

Ginny squeals and leaps up and down on Hermione’s bed, sending books, pens, and a pillow scattering to the floor.

Five hours later, Hermione finds herself in a cute black silk top, tight dark jeans, black booties, and a boisterous mane of curls sitting across from her three best friends in a booth at a pub downtown, splitting a large platter of Irish Nachos. She wipes a thumb down the condensation on her glass, feeling the warmth of seeing Harry and Ron again after so long seep into her bones. The two of them had enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug as soon as she and Ginny slid into the booth. 

The last hour has been spent recounting Harry’s overseas stint working for the Royal Marines in an interagency operation with the Americans in Bahrain, and Ron’s first League Two season with the Carlisle United Football Club. It had been the most laughter Hermione experienced since she first reported to flight training three months prior.

"So what have _you_ been doing since you got here, 'Mione?" Ron asks while dividing a particularly globby pile of lukewarm cheese from a potato skin covered in chives and bacon.

"Well, as I've mentioned fifteen times already, we've been waiting to enroll in our first phase of training, Ronald," she says sweetly. 

"Which means she's already read all the manuals five times," Harry cuts in with a grin.

"Yeah, she can probably teach the instructors how to fly, not the other way around," Ginny says, and gets into a forking match with Ron over another deliciously cheesy spud.

In the droning comfort of their conversation, her attention is pulled abruptly out of whack--she sees his white-blond flash of hair long before her brain allows her to process it. His hair is cropped short on the sides, with the top combed over, long with an extreme left part. Something straight out of Peaky Blinders, and most definitely not within grooming regulations. A few bangs spring from his gelled style and fall in front of his eyes, the cherry to his bad-boy, pouting-model charm. 

Barely is she willing to admit to herself that she would be able to pick him out of a lineup a thousand miles long, but the fact remains that it's true.

He is impossibly tall, with exquisite angles, and stoic to a devilish degree. His long nose and sharp jawline cut through the crowd, leaving a wake of excited whispers and exaggerated glances from the chicks he passes by. He slides into the pub like butter across a hot pan, flanked by three of his mates, grey eyes flicking around at all of the faces as if he couldn't possibly care any less about where he was at. His elegance is so out of place, and she wonders what the fuck he's doing here in a dive bar in the same town she’s in when she suddenly remembers that he supposedly is at the same school now. As an instructor, no less. 

_What the fuck?_

He stalks around as a silhouette, his smooth and natural cant leaning away from everyone else. From some deep dark spot in her brilliant brain, she remembers he hates being touched by strangers. 

A woman is tucked casually into his arm, her dark hair falling straight as a curtain, chicly chopped off at her pert little chin. She wears a long burgundy peacoat, draping down to her knees, baring long, cream-white legs that flash like photography in this dingy little pub. Everything about her is dainty and perfectly-coiffed. Hermione recognizes her from the tabloids--Parkinson Someone-or-another. Duchess of something or another, a model perhaps; nonetheless, some rich little waif serving no purpose in this world than to hang on a spoilt brat's arm, apparently. 

Hermione feels Ginny kick her shin for staring. She rolls her eyes, and presses her lips to her glass, returning to Ron's theatrical account of his practice earlier in the morning.  
Harry tears at a napkin, seemingly fully-immersed in his story, nodding and laughing at all the right times, but Hermione can feel him watching her in his peripheral, trying to read her lines and figure out what is going on in her brain. 

She should know better—Harry can scent suspicion and unease in any human from nearly 30 paces away. His natural propensity for attention to detail and tenacity was harrowing enough before, but even more so now that his special forces training honed them to a lethal degree. 

This annoys her, although she's not entirely sure why: he’s always watched her social cues like some obnoxious eagle owl stalking a field mouse, even in grade school. She narrows her eyes at him, watching as his brows shoot up to his hairline and an innocent expression passes over his face. He grins toothily at her and takes a long drag from his beer, smacking the foam from his lips.

"'Mione, why don't you come and play with us tomorrow? Gin says you're quite the runner now," Ron says, nudging her ribs.

"She ran 11 miles last Sunday!" Ginny shrieks. "Straight mental!!"

"Damn, Hermione. Sure you don't want to join me in the combat theater?" Harry says through a mischievous smile. "We could use a pair of legs--I mean tenacity like that."

Her face sours, but he just shakes his head and laughs; she knows he doesn't mean it in a crass way, but she slaps his shoulder anyway.

"Seriously! Come kick around a bit with us. I promise I'll punt Zabini into next year if he tries any slippery shit,” Ron says. Another nudge in her personal space.

Hermione groans, and presses her fingers to her temples. "You know how I feel about sports, Ronald. Especially when they can affect my flight status."

"We're not even flying yet!" Ginny whines.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t get disqualified at any time,” Hermione hisses.

"It would be good to have you, though. You could use some sun," Ron says, taking a long pull from his beer. He yanks on a wayward curl. Ron, as brotherly as he is, worries the bone to the marrow when it comes to trying to get her away from her studies.

"I'll be with you in spirit, Ronald," she replies firmly. She gives him a look to drop it. 

Before he can retort back, a group of shadows pass over their table, and she watches the smile dump from Ron’s face. 

“I should have known I’d find you lot at this shithole,” a deep sneering drawl of a voice rumbles from behind, “when you so clearly should be studying.” Ron, Harry, and Ginny immediately tense. 

Hermione feels her heart drop into her stomach. She wills herself to remain as hard as obsidian, to say nothing, and she grips her glass hard enough to make her fingertips white.

“This must be where all the townies frequent,” she hears a woman behind her say with a sniff.

 _Ignore them and they’ll leave_ is a 10-hour loop mantra in her head.

“Fucking pathetic, is what it is,” she hears another voice, most likely belonging to Nott.

Hermione can’t help herself. She feels the heat of his stare and whips herself around to face Malfoy and his posse. Zabini, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson hover around him as he sidles up uninvited to their table, right next to her. He’s close enough to knock elbows with her, and she can smell the cool masculine scent of his cologne.

Hermione clamps down on her resolve to remain calm. Her mask betrays nothing but complete indifference.

“The fuck do _you_ want, Malfoy,” Ron hisses, leaning over the table and into Malfoy’s face. 

“Oh, just coming to mingle with the working class, Weasel,” Malfoy sneers.

Harry cuts in. “Take your political campaign elsewhere, Malfoy. We’re not into whatever snobbish bullshit you’re selling,” Harry says, wrapping an arm around Ginny’s shoulder.

Malfoy finds this funny, for some reason, and erupts in a barking laugh. He grips his whiskey tumbler, large university ring knocking against the glass. “Such a precious bunch of rags to riches plot bunnies we’ve got here.” Pansy drapes herself onto his shoulder. Malfoy couldn’t look more bored with the world than if someone paid him. “Potter, the golden child, Her Majesty’s Royal Marine himself, prodigious offspring of famous war heroes, finally back from the middle-east to rub all your awards in our faces, hm? How was it out there? Hot?”

Good _God_ , he drones on, Hermione thinks, her mouth in a tightly-clamped line.

“Go stuff it, you wanker,” Ron says through clenched teeth.

“Watch it, Weasel,” Crabbe hisses, squaring up behind Malfoy. 

Nott settles for the melodramatics, letting out a world-weary sigh as he grips two delicate fingertips at his temple. “I hate seeing students out in town,” he says. “Let’s just go across town to the Club.”

Malfoy, however, is relentless once he’s zoned in on his next kill, and he draws his gaze to Ron, his left dimple creasing as his sneer intensifies. “Of course, Potter’s shitty background story doesn’t nearly compare to the sixth-string C-team class soccer act we’ve come to know and love as Weasel, does it? How’s life on the outside since your discharge, bud?” 

He’s goading them, and Hermione wants to wipe that sad excuse of a face from his skull, but she bites her tongue. Ron is seething, and it only spurs Malfoy further. “Tell me, what trailer park do we have to burn down for spitting out such a piece of shit brood of Weasel idiots into the world?”

Splotches of red appear across Ron’s cheek and forehead, and his mouth gapes open like a fish out of water.

“Oh, give it a rest, Malfoy,” Ginny says with a yawn. “Nobody cares about your commentary.”

Malfoy’s eyes slide to Ginny. “Quiet, Weaselette, the adults are talking. I’m still not even sure how you qualified to join the military, much less become a flight student.” Nott and Goyle share a laugh, and Malfoy looks utterly pleased with himself.

Hermione’s resolve finally cracks. “And what is it that you actually do, Malfoy, besides run your worthless mouth all over town?” she quips. 

“I’ve heard what you can do with your mouth,” Goyle finally pipes up. Malfoy, ignoring him, turns his blazing gaze to her, his movements as fluid as a snake spiraling down a branch and into her lap. His eyes are gleaming with malicious glee.

“Ahh, Granger,” he says, savoring her name with cruel pleasure. “My favorite, plucky little heroine, with such humble beginnings as a paper pusher, decides to try to catapult her way into the upper class, to make her mark and bring about change--”

“Save it, Malfoy. Aren’t you supposed to be in France making a humble brag post about your father’s money on Instagram or something? ” Harry says, cracking his knuckles against the table. 

“Now, now, Potter. That’s no way to talk to your superior,” Malfoy replies.

Again, she finds her mouth moving on its own volition. “Isn’t chasing skirts around downtown a bit beneath you at this stage in the game?” Malfoy’s eyes snap back over to Hermione and she wants to smack herself for drawing his attention to her again.

"I do so miss you filing my travel claims and calling me 'sir' at school, Granger," he drawls. 

Somehow, although his eyes are half-lidded, his gaze is piercing. Wheedling. Meddling. Pressing gently at the folds of her brain, trying to get in as he always had.

Parkinson's tittering laugh explodes from her place at his elbow, and a dark slender eyebrow arches at Hermione as a challenge. She makes an incredible show of folding the collar of his coat down with perfectly-manicured hands.

Ginny collects her empty glass and throws on her coat. “Come on, guys, let’s get out of here. The crowd’s a buzz kill,” she says, trying to rouse her brother from glaring a hole into Malfoy’s forehead.

But Malfoy can’t leave well enough alone. “You know, I’m curious. How did you get a Fleet Air Arm billet, Granger?”

“Certainly not by my father’s pandering to the Good Old Boys Club and kissing ass to the selection board,” she spits at him. “Some of us earn our spots through hard work and dedication.”

He scoffs, his mouth morphing into his patented look of disgust. "Sure. It has nothing to do with you getting a handout for diversity's sake. Or knowing the right guy to fuck," he sneers. "Being poor, prior-enlisted, and a woman, had nothing to do with it.” He laughs again, and it’s a bitter sound. “I can't even begin to imagine which one of your superiors you sucked off for your solicitation."

"Good God, Malfoy," Zabini says. This is even too far for Zabini; despite being Malfoy's best mate, he is an active member of the intramural soccer league on RAFC Cranwell and intends to keep it that way. Zabini's eyebrows are encroaching on his hairline, whispers of his tight black curls speak of his need for a haircut. Under normal circumstances, Hermione would have probably quipped at him about complying with grooming regulations.

Malfoy cuts his searing gaze to Zabini, who snaps his mouth shut. 

Ginny looks as though she's swallowed a lemon and a lime. Ron is clenching and unclenching his fists, his eyes darting back and forth from Malfoy to Hermione, red blooming on his face and neck in an angry swirl of heat. Harry sits there rigidly, his fist curled with tight fingers on his knee, glaring at Malfoy. But he knows not to interfere--this is Hermione's fight. 

Rage is roiling in Hermione's gut, and her fingers clamp hard around her pint glass. "I'll have you fucking know, you glorified piece of shit--"

"You'll do no such thing," Malfoy says, standing tall and cracking his neck before leaning down to her. His pointed nose is mere inches from her own. His breath is cool and minty, with the wooden tang of whiskey, as it puffs away a curl from her face. Although his words are scathing, the right corner of his mouth twists up in a cruel curl. "There was never a need for women in any of the wars, and there certainly isn't a need now. You're too emotional, impulsive, and pent up. You're nothing but a distraction. You have no class, no sense of authority." 

He pulls back to look down his long chiseled-marble nose at her. "You think people will follow you into the field? Trust you to look after them overhead? I sure as shit wouldn't want you in my cockpit." His laughter is cold and cuts to the bone.

The table is completely silent, although there is still the general pub clamor around them. It sounds louder, somehow, filling in the space of the silence at the table. He must take that as his cue to seal the deal. "Be a good, silly little bint, and go back to where you belong, filing papers, hm?" 

In a flash, Malfoy's face is drenched in the rest of Hermione's beer, foam trickling down his perfect face and pooling into the collar of his trenchcoat. Hermione slams her glass onto the table, the sound ringing out, and takes a step back, regarding him with a sobering mix of smugness, hatred, and embarrassment. There is an eerie moment of silence across the bar as the scene plays out, like a record skipping, before an explosion of sound erupts. 

"You rank little _bitch_ ," Malfoy snarls, baring his teeth through pale, tight lips. He looks like he's winding up to slam his fist into her face. A chair scrapes across the floor as Harry jumps to his feet behind Hermione, his face as white as a specter beneath the gleam of his lenses. Hermione senses an oncoming war. 

"I think it's time for you to leave, Malfoy," Harry says quietly. His arm is a rod of steel ending in a tightly-clenched fist. “Wouldn’t want to stand in front of your superiors on Monday morning because you initiated a bar brawl with one of your students and several members from other branches of service.”

Parkinson squeaks and flutters around Malfoy, waving long fingers in the air and screeching at people for a napkin. Several people are gasping, pointing, and laughing. Malfoy's face is twisted in a snarl, still dripping with beer, and Zabini, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle have him by the shoulders. He's spewing a long string of curse words as he is dragged into the throng of people lined up for the bar.

Hermione turns back to the table, taking sharp staccato breaths, trying to quell the sheer rawness of things she is feeling. She sets to constructing a mask as quickly as he sent it crashing down into pieces on the floor. Despite how good it felt to dump her beer on him, it only served to prove him right. 

_Impulsive._  
_Emotional._  
_Pent-up._

"Jesus, FUCK that guy," Ron says, teeth bared at them as they disappeared into the crowd. Harry is watching her silently, still as stone.

Ginny slithers an arm around her shoulders, squeezing Hermione to her. "Don't listen to that stupid cock and his swill," she says loudly. Ron nods in agreement, his attention finally away from the door.

"He's right, you know," Hermione says softly. "I just proved that to everyone."

Ron barks out a laugh. "If you didn't do that, I was going to do something way worse."

"Don't crucify yourself, Hermione," Harry finally says with a sigh, sitting back down at the table. He looks incredibly weary, as though he just spent an entire 24 hours at a daycare, or a long hot afternoon marching endless miles in a Middle-Eastern desert. He takes a sip of his beer, his fingers searching for hers. "Malfoy's always been an ass, even at Dartmouth, and everyone knows it. You have more respect and credentials than he’ll ever have. He certainly knows it."

She sighs, and turns her attention back to her glass, wondering how they convinced her to go out on a Friday night in the first place.


End file.
